Dean K Simonton has been saying for a while that creativity is a form of
constrained stochastic behaviour that can be accurately modelled as a
quasi-random combinatorial process:

Simonton, DK: 2003, Scientific creativity as constrained stochastic
behavior: the integration of product, person, and process perspectives,
Psychological Bulletin, 129(4), 475-494.

He shows that "the experimental literature on insight problems, creative
production, and complex inferences all support the thesis that creative
behavior... must be fundamentally stochastic"

Now, if the people from Polyphonic HMI [www.polyphonichmi.com] are not
entirely wrong, then the success of (pop) designs could be better
understood -even predicted for a fee- by analysing the 'patterns of
success' determined by consumers/users/critics than by studying
idiosyncratic design processes. http://www.polyphonichmi.com/technology.html

We have been trying to understand creativity by looking at the process
of creating new ideas, and have disregarded almost entirely the
processes of evaluating them, which may end up being as or more important.

A recent issue of "Fast Company" also reviews the issue of creativity,
poorly. But one of the main articles describes the expensive and failed
efforts by Microsoft to sustain their innovative practices in the last
decade. If successful products were designed consistently by some, why
would the richest person on Earth invest 10 times more in R&D than his
competitors and yet fail to deliver? How to explain the blunders of
pop-design-gurus Steve Jobs/Jonathan Ive such as the conveniently
forgotten Cube or the upcoming iPod Shuffle? Or for that matter the
unsuccessful products/works of Thomas Edison, Alfred Hitchcock, etc...

Once again... in trying to decipher the mythical process of creating new
ideas, we have been taking for granted the socio-cultural processes of
evaluating them.

-- Ricardo Sosa





On 17/01/2005 5:53 PM, it seems that Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
> we should indeed expect that designers generate workable ideas, more so
> than
> unworkable ideas, but this does not speak against the evolutionary
> perspective suggested by robert ornstein's proposition.
> i think the bitter truth is that of the many product proposals that
> designers develop only some are actually realized, and of those that enter
> the market, some will be eliminated by not being purchased as often as
> economical.
> good designers are more successful than not so good ones, but if one uses
> success as a criterion for how good a designer is, then we have a circular
> definition that does not say much about why someone is more successful than
> others.
> here we enter the talent debate by another name.
> klaus
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
> related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf
> Of Rob Curedale
> Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 10:45 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: PHD-DESIGN Digest - 15 Jan 2005 to 16 Jan 2005 (#2005-17)
>
>
> Robert Ornstein does designers a diservice to state that "People
> generate many ideas, almost at random, a few of which are appropriate
> and become selected."
>
> Some designers tend to consistently generate useful new ideas. The
> process isn't random but guided by education,intelligence and
> experience.
>
> Successful designers seem to be able to generate good new ideas without
> going through a stage of generating a great volume of ideas and then
> selecting the best.
>
> I usually do not like to compare design to art but great artists like
> Picasso seem to be able to generate good new art without generating a
> large volume of bad art. The process is not entirely random and
> statistically based.
>
> Rob Curedale
>
>
>
>
> "To sum up , I am thinking of a quote by Robert Ornstein who sums up
> this
> transfer of creativity and idea generation well:
>
> On Creativity
>
>
> " Creativity is part of evolution, and it works in a way similar to
> natural
> selection, in which there are random variations, some of which prove
> useful
> and are "selected" by the environment. People generate many ideas,
> almost at
> random, a few of which are appropriate and become selected. Chance plays
> a
> great role in both the generation and evolution of ideas. Generation of
> ideas is the primary stage. People who have many ideas are more likely
> to
> have creative ones. A useful creative idea is rare. Campbell
> emphasizes:"